Friday, January 2, 2009

The 233 of 2008

... see corrected list posted on 1/6

4 comments:

ppatin said...

Is Annie McCann crossed out because they haven't been able to determine a cause of death, or was it shown that her death wasn't the result of homicide?

Maurice Bradbury said...

both? None are a homicide until the ME's office says so.

Maurice Bradbury said...

I'm not completely sure why Delawntae Finley is on there, I think that may be a mistake and it may be 233.

Cham said...

I often google the names of the murder victims just to see what happens. Most of those names turn up nothing with the exception of reporting of the person's untimely death. The people that are murdered in this city are often those that have never done anything that would require mention on a school honor role, or have participated on a volunteer project, or are part of some sort of event. They die quietly, their murders have a 36% chance of being closed, and their murderers have an even lesser chance of spending one minute behind bars.

However, if the victim is an Annie McCann or a Ken Harris or Zach Sowers, or someone else who has made a mark on society somehow, the murder will be solved and prosecuted or, at least, the medical examiner might look at your corpse more than once.

We know a lot about the people mentioned above, but very little about Modesto Smith, Alton Alston or Craig Colvin. They get eliminated off the face of the earth without a second thought from anyone. I can't help but wonder do they have siblings? Where did they live? What were their hobbies? Are they leaving any kids behind?

I can't be the only one that wonders about all of this. Perhaps if we, as a society, asked a few more questions about these people we could make and dent with the bloodshed. We depersonalize the murders as much as possible because that way we can think of the victims as less than human and therefore not worthy of our time or effort to get to the bottom of why they've lost their lives.

Some psychologist could have a field day with this corundum.

If this wasn't Baltimore, maybe some reporter would care. Maybe somebody would be asking a few more questions.